I think when people praise things like 'Gone with the Wind', its justified.

But I see a lot of love for Jane Austen, who, while being a reasonably good storyteller, tends to be a bit tedious (for me at least). I think "Pride and Prejudice" is severely overrated.

Give me 'Evelina' by Fanny Burney instead.

I never got much out of "Catcher in the Rye" but I read it in high school. Maybe I'd like it more now.

"The Catcher in the Rye" by Salinger has gained so much more 'acclaim' - I remember my Mom telling me that it sold much more in 1981 than any other year because Mark Chapman used it as his Bible before he killed John Lennon (not sure bout this one though....). But yes, Holden Caulfield, ugh.

I'd pick anything by Ayn Rand over that, even though she too is sort of overrated.

Catcher in the Rye. But I haven't read it since high school, either.
Ivanhoe. A supposed action-adventure novel where the title character spends 2/3 of the book in bed.

The Bible.

I like Jane Austen but all this mania now about her and her books...it's just overkill now. I recently read "North & South" by Elizabeth Gaskell and I liked her style better than Austen's. It was a nice change to read about the guy's world and know the ins and outs of his life as well than just the heroine's.
Apart from the Austen ones the other ones that comes to mine are:
1984 by George Orwell
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

The Great Gatsby is the single most boring book I've ever read! Of course I was in High School and wasn't interested in reading it in the first place.

The Old Man and the Sea is also overrated in my opinion. I could skip 50 pages at a time and the story would be in the same spot it was 50 pages ago. An entire book about a guy reeling in one fish!

Hmm . . .can't say that I agree about Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice is one of my favorite books and has been since I first read it in Jr. High).

My choice for an overrated classic is The Last of the Mohicans. Dreadful book, imo.
Also, "The Fall of the House of Usher." I used to keep it by my beside to help me sleep.

I hear you. The narrative is a complete muddle. Internally inconsistent. Needs editing badly. I mean, they actually tell the story of creation twice within a few paragraphs and they can't even keep that consistent.

Whoever let this book out the door in its current form should be fired.

A Separate Pace
The Jungle
The Crucible
90% of Dickens
April Morning
The Good Earth

...pretty much everything I read in High School.

I agree with CATCHER IN THE RYE. It always impressed me as some teen-angst story, not much deeper than THE OUTSIDERS.

Gulliver's Travels

Wow not much love for God an Catcher in the Rye!

The only book i ever had to put down... TWICE was Ulysses by James Joyce, what a total turd that was! I also had to put down Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand but I eventually finshed that (after 13 years) on audiobook.

I hate to sound like a bandwagon jumper, but I've been hating Catcher in the Rye for a good 20 years now. I've read it 3 times since high school, and hated it for the overbearing, self-absorbed, pretentious bullshit it represents even more with each reading.

I mean, look I hate reading Hawthorne as well, but I can appreciate what he was doing with The Scarlet Letter. Salinger is just a douchey prick.

Billy Budd, by Melvlle. I couldnt finish that with a gun to my head.

I am all of mumble33mumble years old now, and I have been forcing myself to read the classics that I either read and dismissed in high school, or just never got around to reading. I recently finished Sense and Sensibility, and while not particularly deep, it was a fun read. I'm currently in Jane Eyre and enjoying it very much. I can totally see today's emo/goth kids enjoying it.

I recently read Catcher in the Rye for the first time in the past year or so and was blown away. I guess I identified with the aimlessness, and feelings of being railroaded into college and "growing up".


So I'm not totally threadcrapping, I guess that I'm saying anything you read (or were forced to read in school), maybe give it another chance after a few years.

I hear you. Of course I'd need to spring for a new copy. My high school paperback didn't survive the intervening years.

I thought it was a pretty good book. Maybe not a classic, but good.

The book I couldn't believe got any acclaim was A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. What's more, somehow Frank McCourt re-wrote it as Angela's Ashes and it still sold. I guess people can't get enough memoirs featuring itinerant, alcoholic Irish immigrant fathers.

I hate to include anything I read in high school, because I was a different person then, and didn't appreciate having these boring books jammed down my throat.
That said, [i]A Tale of Two Cities[/b] was a crushing bore.

I read [i]Treasure Island[i] for the first time within the last few years and was a little disappointed that it wasn't the high adventure that I thought it was.

Also read A Catcher in the Rye in recent years, and was underwhelmed.

This is strange to me. I just read Catcher in the Rye for the first time today. I guess I am late to things sometimes. I just saw it sitting on my roommates shelf and he left for a few days.

I found it incredibly moving and touching at the end. I even shed some tears which is weird for me to say. I think it certainly had an effect on me since I related very much to the child changing experience which definitely happened for me a few years ago. There is also moments of great humor in there that is difficult to express in words which is done so well. I think this teen angst stuff is so simple and lame. It is like labeling movies 'quirky' and what not. Who cares. If you don't find something in it fine but to just blow something off as 'teen angst' is silly.

Lord of the Rings. A trilogy about walking, walking, and more walking. Even the trees were walking. I've never been much for the fantasy genre and when Tolkien started describing the history of the tree people, that was enough for me to put the book down and never open it again.

^^^ Good one. I was told to start with The Hobbit. I almost got all the way through it. I gave up with about 50 pages to go; I figured I understood enough of the story to continue with the REAL Lord of the Rings. I couldn't make it more than about 100 pages in to Fellowship.

I can't say I really blame Tolkien. I'm just not a fantasy book kind of guy. Although I do love the films.

Catcher in the Rye

See you in hell, Last of the Mohicans.